Transcript

00:00:01

>> Saudi Arabia's plans to diversify its economy has launched a big debate online among young Saudis who've been discussing the Vision 2030. I'm Sylvia Weston in Dubai, and I've been monitoring how Saudi Arabia has been interacting with its people and trying to encourage an online debate in the kingdom.

00:00:19

Saudi Arabia's vision 2030 is a plan to diversify the economy, and try and be less reliant on oil revenues. There's about 7.4 million active monthly users in Saudi Arabia on Twitter, which makes it one of the most active countries in the Arab world on social media. And lots of people have been getting involved in this debate over the vision 2030 plans, there is about 190,000 users that have been talking about it on twitter over the days in which it was launched.

00:00:48

Most reactions to the plan has been very positive online, there have been big Saudi personalities like comedians and actors who have been tweeting about and explaining about it. So overall the reaction has been quite good. There's been a little bit of a negative comment regarding plans to get women into the workforce from more conservative commentators on social media.

00:01:09

Social media analysts say that there is a lot of interest by Saudi officials and ministers about what's said about them online, and that they spend a lot of time and money tracking what people say about them. Even if they don't hold social media accounts themselves. So this means that they're really taking into account what people are saying about them, and are changing the way in which they act due to what young people are saying on social media.